"What do you think I ought to do? Go up and beg old Prois's pardon?" asked Smith.
Old Nick sat for quite a while thinking deeply, holding the Pontet Canet up to the light. "H'm—h'm." Then suddenly he jumped up, and slapped Smith on the back with a serviette.
"We can save the situation. I've got an idea. We'll get up a public banquet for old Prois. Yes, that's what I say. And we'll send out the invitations ourselves—you and I."
"But, my dear man, you can't give a public banquet without some sort of pretext, and what are we to tell people it's for? Old Prois he's warden of the Pilot's Guild, but he hasn't done anything notable in the town, that I'm aware of, up to now."
"Oh, we must find something or other. Let me see—he's on the Health Committee—no, that won't do."
"He lent a flag to the committee for the Constitution Day festivities," said Smith sarcastically.
"No, that's not enough. But wait a bit. He must have been on the Rates Committee twenty-five years now—yes, of course. That's the very thing. I'll be chairman, you can be secretary. Dinner at Naes's Hotel on Saturday next—make it a Saturday, so folk can have Sunday to sleep it off after."
Smith was very doubtful still.
"But suppose he thinks it's a hoax—then we'd be worse off than before."
"A hoax!" said Old Nick. "Well, so it is in a way, but nobody'll know except you and me. All the others will take it up as easy as winking. Only give them a decent dinner, man, and they'll be ready enough, all the lot of them; there's always room for a bit of a spread of that sort, and we've had nothing now for quite a while. No, all we've got to do now is to get out the invitations first of all. Hand me the pen and ink over there."